Good morning, a huge thank you to all students and parents for your patience and cooperation as we worked through the contact tracing process. With the large number of daily cases in St. Lawrence County this has certainly become a more time consuming process, and we are extremely grateful for the partnership with the St. Lawrence County Public Health Department.
As it stands today we are able to make the decision to have our Jr./Sr. High students return to in-person instruction on Monday, November 30 with the exception of 8th grade students. 8th grade students will remain on remote instruction through Wednesday, December 2 with a return to in-person instruction on Thursday, December 3. This is due to quarantined staffing limitations and a preponderance of 8th grade students also being quarantined.
8th grade students and any other quarantined students will be able to participate in the weekly meal service with pickup on Tuesday, December 1 from 2:45-3:30. The meal order form can be found by clicking the COVID resources tab on the District home page. The order form is live from Wednesday - Friday so orders must be submitted by Friday at 10:00 a.m.
A four-day loss of in-person learning for our students is not an event that we take lightly. Although we have tremendous confidence in our ability to deliver solid remote instruction, nothing is as effective as face-to-face interaction. We ask that our entire school community continue to follow all health and safety protocols to help us avoid these disruptions.
Based on recent conversations with public health and anecdotal accounts from around the region it is widely believed that one of our larger hurdles to mitigating the spread is the resistance to staying home when not feeling well. We are undoubtedly North Country tough and are accustomed to going about our business as we fight off symptoms during cold and flu season. To help us keep our school doors open during this uptick in cases we will need to be counterintuitive and resist the urge to tough it out. We are asking everyone to pay attention to even the smallest symptoms and stay home as needed.
Madrid-Waddington is a tremendous community that consistently demonstrates an unwavering dedication to our students. Minimizing future disruptions to our in-person processes will require a combined effort as we follow public health guidelines.
Thank you in advance and we wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving.